The Ones We Love
by DarthAbby
Summary: ...can hurt us in ways no one else can. Not with a harsh word, or a slap on the face, but by simply not being there. Songfic, 'Field Below' Regina Spektor. Sad Xmas oneshot. Shannon/Gibbs, Jenny/Gibbs. Set sometime after Jen dies.


**The Ones We Love**

**This is kind of drawn from my own experiences with homesickness, losing a loved one, and missing my childhood. It's not that far behind me, but sometimes it just feels like I've been around well past my years.**

**I do not own N.C.I.S or 'Field Below' by Regina Spektor.**

**This is set back a few seasons, though there will be few, if any, spoilers.**

**Please remember to Review at the End!**

**000**

Gibbs closed his eyes as he breathed in deeply. The sharp, clean, cold air rushed into his lungs, bringing back happy childhood memories of playing in the snow up in Stillwater, Pennsylvania. If there was anything he disliked about living so close to the city, besides the traffic and poor excuses for coffee houses everywhere, it was the lack of cozy little towns where you could let your kid go by himself a few blocks over to have a snowball fight with some friends. Besides, Gibbs thought with a soft snort, most kids nowadays were probably having snowball fights over the Internet. In the middle of July.

_I wish I'd see a field below._

_I wish I'd hear a rooster crow._

_But there are none who live downtown,_

_And so the day starts out so slow._

Opening his eyes, Gibbs looked over the neighbors near him. Most had put up Christmas decorations already, the holidays being only a few weeks away. He himself didn't bother with lights and all that anymore. He had been unable to face the boxes up in the attic, holding all the decorations and ornaments Kelly had picked out.

_Again the sun was never called,_

_And darkness spreads over the snow,_

_Like ancient bruises,_

_I am awake to feel the ache._

Kelly. Even now, all these years later, her name brought to his chest an acute pain, as though his heart was being carved out by a rusty spoon wielded by someone who was either a skilled torturer, or a lousy carver.

_But I wish I'd see a field below._

_I wish I'd see a field below!_

More than anything, though, Gibbs ached to hold Shannon, his sweet, sweet Shannon, one last time, be able to tell her he loved her, be able to hug his daughter again, pick her up and swing her around.

He wanted to hear them laugh, see them smile, marvel at how lucky Kelly was to look so much like her mother, and curse the fact that because she did, all the boys would be running after her. Gibbs allowed himself a small smile, though, as he remembered how her sparkling blue eyes, just like his, could spark with anger or become as hard and cold as ice. She would've had no problem sending a boy packing just as easily as he could.

Kelly and Shannon had both been so bright and bubbly, always ready to smile, lend a hand, or just be there to comfort someone. One of the reasons he was so close to Abby, Gibbs knew, was because the Goth was just like his girls in that respect.

_I wish I'd see your face below._

_I wish I'd hear you whispering low._

_But you don't live downtown no more,_

_And everything must come and go!_

He had to let go of the past at some point, he knew, but by trial and error, he also knew that letting go wasn't as easy as trying to fall in love again. Jenny had helped, definitely, but she had also pushed him aside. And now she was dead too, killed in a shootout because of their mistake so many years ago, when she failed to kill her target and he failed to clean up the loose ends they had left in Paris.

_Again the sun was never called!_

_And darkness spreads over the snow,_

_Like ancient bruises,_

_I am awake and feel the ache._

_I am awake and feel the ache._

The wounds Shannon and Kelly had left on his heart hadn't even begun to close over, and Jenny's death had only added to the pain he carried, but he had long ago learned to hide his pain. If apologizing had been deemed a weakness, then so had been showing his emotional scars.

_But I wish I'd see a field below._

_I wish I'd see a field below!_

_I am awake and feel the ache._

_Oh, but I wish I'd see a field below._

Gibbs turned his back on the snow drifts that were piled around his house, glittering in the early morning light.

_I am awake and feel the ache._

_Oh, but I wish I'd see a field below._

_I wish I'd see a field below._

He knew it probably sounded ridiculous, but he wished he could've taken Kelly back to Stillwater, just once, to sled down what was, in his opinion, the best sledding hill he'd seen yet.

_I wish I'd see a field below._


End file.
